Democracy in America — Volume 1Tocqueville, Alexis de
History
Democracy in America — Volume 1
Tocqueville, Alexis de
Democracy -- United States; United States -- Politics and government; United States -- Social conditions
Hamilton, after having demonstrated the utility of a power which might
prevent, or which might at least impede, the promulgation of bad laws,
adds: “It might perhaps be said that the power of preventing bad laws
includes that of preventing good ones, and may be used to the one
purpose as well as to the other. But this objection will have little
weight with those who can properly estimate the mischiefs of that
inconstancy and mutability in the laws which form the greatest blemish
in the character and genius of our governments.” (Federalist, No. 73.)
And again in No. 62 of the same work he observes: “The facility and
excess of law-making seem to be the diseases to which our governments
are most liable. . . . The mischievous effects of the mutability in the
public councils arising from a rapid succession of new members would
fill a volume: every new election in the States is found to change
one-half of the representatives. From this change of men must proceed a
change of opinions and of measures, which forfeits the respect and
confidence of other nations, poisons the blessings of liberty itself,
and diminishes the attachment and reverence of the people toward a
political system which betrays so many marks of infirmity.”
Jefferson himself, the greatest Democrat whom the democracy of America
has yet produced, pointed out the same evils. “The instability of our
laws,” said he in a letter to Madison, “is really a very serious
inconvenience. I think that we ought to have obviated it by deciding
that a whole year should always be allowed to elapse between the
bringing in of a bill and the final passing of it. It should afterward
be discussed and put to the vote without the possibility of making any
alteration in it; and if the circumstances of the case required a more
speedy decision, the question should not be decided by a simple
majority, but by a majority of at least two-thirds of both houses.”
Public Officers Under The Control Of The Democracy In America Simple
exterior of the American public officers—No official costume—All public
officers are remunerated—Political consequences of this system—No
public career exists in America—Result of this.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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